Mick Hartley

It's a familiar story by now: the silence of Western feminists when it comes to the oppression of Muslim women. Possible accusations of "Islamophobia" trump any concern over trivia like female genital mutilation. John Kass in the Chicago Tribune:

Imagine what the American left would do if conservative Republican Christians engaged in a barbaric practice to mutilate little girls, to kill off their sexual desire while leaving them fertile when they come of age.

American feminists and their allies of the left would be outraged. Op-ed writers from establishment newspapers would seethe and a few, I suspect, would draw some link to the ascension of Donald Trump and angry white men.

We'd witness a social media firestorm condemning the act, with tweets and hashtags.

But the other day, a Michigan physician was charged in a federal indictment for allegedly conspiring to perform female genital mutilation. It is a practice that predates Islam, but one that remains prevalent in many North African and some Middle Eastern predominantly Muslim countries.

In the Michigan case, the alleged victims are two 7-year-old girls.

American feminism has been mostly quiet about the girls. And the left in general has not engaged.

It is so quiet that you can't even hear crickets hiding under the leaves. But silence can often hold the truth of things.

"It's all so very sad and depressing. I find this silence extremely painful," renowned feminist and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali told me in an interview. "It's been inculcated into them (the left) not to engage.

"The left can easily and comfortably condemn the misogyny of white men, but not of men of color, not of Muslims," Hirsi Ali said. "They are afraid of being shunned. They're afraid of being put into a basket of deplorables. So they're silent.

"And what are they being silent about? They are being silent about the mutilation of young girls."…

"I come from Somalia and 98 percent of Somali girls, Egyptians, Sudanese, this happens to them," Hirsi Ali said. "In Muslim communities there is the demand that women, girls, should be virgins and a woman's sexuality is to be controlled and this is an effective and brutal way of doing that."…

I left repeated messages for the National Organization for Women's Michigan chapter, but they did not return my calls or emails.

Another aspect of the politics of all this is the decision by The New York Times — the arbiter of all things liberal in America — not to use the term female genital mutilation.

The Times opted for an Orwellian phrase, "genital cutting," not to spare the Victorian sensibilities of its readers, but because it is politically palatable to the left.

But the United Nations uses female genital mutilation. The World Health Organization uses female genital mutilation.

It is not merely a cut. You can cut your fingernail. This is mutilation for a cultural purpose, to rob women of sexual joy and render them as breeders.

All of this, the application of a politically correct filter by The New York Times, the avoidance of the issue by the left, even the destruction of female sexuality by ancient cultures, is political.

And who suffers? Political wits and activists don't suffer. Girls suffer.

Not, of course, that matters are any better here in the UK. 

And let's not forget the view from the world of post-colonial studies.